Official TIDAL HIFI Streaming Issues Thread

[The Computer Audiophile]

The people at Tidal are well aware of the issue of not communicating this kind of stuff to customers. I talked to them about it. Hopefully they'll get better at communicating:~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

I have been a customer since the (pre JayZ) introduction to the USA in October. I finally dropped Tidal this morning. I really wanted them to succeed, but while their service has improved, the intermittent dropouts continued.

 

I always said I would give them 6 months. I gave them 7. Speaking as an audiophile, I think the JayZ purchase was a setback.

What do you think has changed since the Jay Z purchase?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Focus on high definition streaming. I'm not sure what their focus is now.

As far as I know the company is much more focussed on high definition streaming now than it has ever been, especially with MQA.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Their service failed to deliver reliable high definition streaming to me for 7 months. If Tidal was focused on hi def streaming, I would be a satisfied customer.

I was confused. I though you were talking about Tidal's focus on higher definition audio that cd quality. Sorry.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Guys - What do ya know, a new version of the desktop app is coming back! It should be available around noon on Thursday. I'm using it now and it's a mirror image of the web interface. Can't wait to see if it clears up the issues people have experienced thus far.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Howdy - I just found this blog for Tidal streaming issues. My issue is that i'm noticing a sort of distortion in the high frequency range on many tracks on Tidal. I have a dedicated sound room with sound control and i can hear just the slightest noises. At first, I was very concerned it was my speakers, but have tried different speakers (all high end) and still notice it. Then i would play a DSD or MQA file of my own and wouldn't hear any distortion. My streaming setup is through the Auralic Aries(wireless) connected USB to Vega, and also have a Mytek DAC and I notice the distortion no matter what DAC i'm using. Very frustrated. Any ideas? Solutions? Work arounds? Am i crazy?

Thanks,

-sean

Hi Sean - You're crazy, get the heck out of here! Only joking! This is interesting. When you play music that isn't sourced from Tidal, where does it come from (NAS, local Aries storage etc...)?

 

Are you using WiFi or wired Etherent?

 

Can you give us some specific tracks to listen to and possibly some parts of these tracks?

 

Just trying to figure out all the variables.

[The Computer Audiophile]

The sound quality from Tidal isn't that great. I signed up for a 30 day trial and couldn't stand it after 10 songs. I'll stick with ripping my CD's thru Foobar. Way better sound

 

I cancelled my 30 day trial after one hour.

 

What app were you using to play the Tidal music?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Yes the app/hardware you use is key. My favorite so far is the webplayer on Windows, whats your preferred method Chris?

 

I rarely use Tidal via the web, but when I do it's exclusively through Chrome. Chrome is the only browser that can stream lossless. I also have the Tidal desktop app, but have only used it a few times. Most of my Tidal listening is through hardware with embedded Tidal, such as Auralic, Aurender, and Naim. I also use Tidal with Roon quite a bit.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Can you test to see if this happens when Tidal passes the MQA music without doing the unfold?

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, Acesn8s said:

Changing the DNS to Google 8.8.8.8. did not cure the stuttering issue that occurs during the initial MQA unfold every few albums. Changing the Dell laptop's power setting to Maximum Performance didn't help, either. Nor did setting the computer to airplane mode while connected via Cat 7 Ethernet cable.

 

Unless this board has more suggestions, I suppose that I will ignore MQA until I swap out computers or an affordable streamer or music player with decoding ability becomes available.

 

Thanks!

Is it possible to look at the task manager / activity monitor at the precise time the stuttering happens? It would be interesting to see if anything jumps out. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

In my experience, once you have plenty of bandwidth, the issues are more related to the playback software/hardware. 

 

I don't claim to speak for anyone but myself. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Never?  It never just stops for a minute or more, or sometimes locking up so you have to force quit A+?

 

What are you running it on?

 

This happens on my 2011 Mac Mini with an SSD and 8gb of ram, as well as my brand new iMac with 32gb of ram and an SSD, super fast 4.5 or so I7 processor.

 

I wonder if it's a dns issue. Have you tried using Google dns 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4? This is what I use and have zero problems. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, randyhat said:

Did that work?  If so, how did you do it?  The recommendation I got from Tidal was to have my ISP make these changes.  Looks like what you did was relatively simple.  Are you using your MAC to connect to Tidal?  I'm using a Bluesound Node 2.  Has anyone who has made these DNS changes found that it fixed the problem?   Thanks...

 

I'm not sure if it helps everyone, someone, or no one, but if you need to do it for your Bluesound products, the easiest way to do it is at the router (if that's what's handling DHCP for you). You can login to your router and just tell it to hand out these DNS settings. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, mav52 said:

I know its not my cable provider, it happens in central Fl with Spectrum and AT&T , Comcast, Cox cable and it happens at my friends home in Columbia SC, TimeWarner. Different streamers , different cable providers,. different parts of the country.  Its a tidal problem.  Been using, Aurender A10, Lumin, Brooklynn its just getting really old, drop offs/studders/pause whatever you want to call it, its becoming a pain.  Heck maybe its a network/server capacity problem at Tidal wherever they are pushing music form.

 

If this was 2 years ago, with several people I know working at Tidal, this would be solvable. I could actually get a knowledgable person from Tidal to work with Aurender or Lumin, and tell us exactly where the problem is and how to fix it, if possible. 

 

Sadly, Tidal is a shell of its former self.

 

Speaking of that, everyone saw that Deezer Elite (lossless) no longer has an exclusive contract with Sonos right? I'd put my money on Roon integrating this service as soon as possible :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

49 minutes ago, firedog said:

I'd think that depends on the willingness of Deezer to have their service integrated into the Roon UI. 

 

Roon isn't willing to compromise on their UI look. (Uderstandable from their point of view). 

 

I don't remember if it was Spotify , Qobuz, or someone else, but at the Roon forum the Roon guys said the reason a certain service wasn't integrated into Roon was that the company in question wasn't willing to let it's info etc., be displayed completely in the Roon look. Tidal was more than willing to allow not only access to their database, but also willing to give Roon total control over how that info is displayed within Roon. 

 

Spotify is the company that won't allow anything other than its own app.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Could try the new Cloudflare DNS at 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

If you haven't read much about Cloudflare's public DNS, I recommend this - https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-1111/

 

I've been using it since April 1 and like it.

[The Computer Audiophile]

26 minutes ago, rodrigaj said:

For those switching to Cloudfare, does this produce new IP addresses for devices on your network?

nope.

[The Computer Audiophile]

13 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

I can no longer connect to Tidal over cellular at any streaming quality level.  Wireless is not a problem.  I hard wiped my phone, installed only Tidal, same issue.  I've had minor connectivity issues before, but nothing as bad as this.

 

What phone and OS?

 

Does your phone work with Tidal over WiFi?

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

LG V30 Android, Verizon is the carrier.  This phone has an excellent DAC and supports MQA.

Tidal will work over wifi.

 

Try streaming a very popular and promoted new album like that of Beyonce and Jay Z with your settings on the lowest quality. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, Geoff1954 said:

Criminal? I don't like it either. But just change it back. (This is not the first time a Tidal update has done this.)

Ouch!

[The Computer Audiophile]

The whole thing about changing the users' quality settings is a trick streaming services have used for a long time. It's pretty bad and shows that even they think their customers can't hear a difference between the quality levels. 

 

If Tidal needed to reset the app for a real reason, they could always save this setting and reapply it after the update. Not rocket science. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, jcn3 said:

anyone else run into tidal issues within the last few minutes?  suddenly won't work with tidal or via the website.

I used Tidal once every couple months now. I highly recommend Qobuz.